网络环境下形成性评价对大学生英语写作能力影响的实证研究

介绍了在某高校进行的网络环境下形成性评价对大学生英语写作能力影响的实证研究。研究结果表明,网络环境下的形成性评价能有效地提高学生的英语写作能力,在大学外语教学中具有广泛的应用前景。     

Introducing teachers to new semiotic tools for writing instruction and writing assessment: consequences for students’ writing proficiency

This article reports consequences for student writing quality based on a long-term professional learning project. Project teachers, representing all school subjects in grades 3–7, were presented with a writing construct, ‘Wheel of Writing’, and norms of expectation for writing proficiency. Participating teachers used the writing construct and norms as a basis for writing instruction and writing assessment. The project was conducted in 24 schools across Norway. 3088 students from 20 project schools participated. Two hundred and thirty three students from 4 schools were used as a comparison group. The investigation showed that students in primary school improved their writing quality significantly. Students in lower secondary school did not. However, there was substantial variation in writing quality effects between schools, classes, and individual students. For instance at a number of schools, project students from lower secondary school improved their writing quality significantly. The article discusses potential explanations of the effects.     

同伴互助交流与中国学生二语写作能力的探讨

我国二语写作教学中"教师一次性评定"的传统评改模式制约着学生二语写作能力的发展。同伴互助交流并共同探讨写作任务,是将输出假设理论应用于二语写作的积极尝试。在二语写作过程中,通过学习者的互助互评,并反思同伴的意见反馈,对中国学生二语写作能力的构建和发展有积极的意义。     

Looking beyond judging and ranking: Writing assessment as a generative practice

Establishing the score or the placement as the first priority in a writing assessment leads to more reductive forms of writing assessment. However, if the prompts used in a direct test of writing were generative – that is, if they asked test-takers to analyze their own experiences as writers or learners, for example – the resulting texts would be useful data beyond the act of producing a ranking or a judgment. Washington State University developed and trialled such a prompt, one that asks students to reflect on their curricular and extra-curricular learning opportunities in relation to the university's Six Learning Goals for the Baccalaureate. The results were texts that demonstrate, among other things, which goals are (and are not) effectively distributed across the curriculum. Using these texts to address outcomes assessment on a university-wide level makes the assessment more valuable than it would be if it merely produced a set of placements. In addition, the richness of the student texts has provided a valuable resource for graduate-level research that is broader and more meaningful than simply training future raters of writing. Further, the raw data have proved to be accessible to researchers with wide-ranging theoretical lenses, meaning that the data yielded by an assessment can become a significant resource for research beyond the needs of the assessment program alone. Given the need for university assessment programs to compete for ever-scarcer resources, exploring the potential of the generative prompt seems in our enlightened self-interest.     

以语块为核心 促进大学英语写作教学探析

大学生英语作文中常常可以看到语法上正确,但表达上、不符合本族语表达习惯的中式英语,即使词汇量大、语法基础好的学生写出的作文也不例外。为了改善这一状况,提出了在写作教学中关注语块教学的新理念,即引导学生在语法的基础上以固定搭配、成语、固定或半固定短语等语块,而不是单个的词来组织话语。主张在写作教学中以语块为核心,设计多稿写作的任务链,使学生在拓展并应用语块的过程中提高写作能力。     

Acts of responding. Teachers’ written comments and students’ text revisions

ABSTRACT

This article addresses written feedback to students’ drafts and provides insight into teachers’ formative assessment practices. Data are taken from a large cross-disciplinary project on writing and assessment in Norway and comprises a sample of 7th graders’ writing processes from 11 schools. Teachers’ comments are categorised according to different acts of responding, drawing on theories of language acts. The study also focuses what teachers comment on, and selected examples from students’ revisions illustrate how teachers’ comments are handled. Findings show that a majority of the teacher comments are directive acts, pointing to specific textual aspects – and quite seldom in a dialogic way. The directives constitute a continuum illustrating different degrees of teacher control. Constatives are frequent, but do not necessarily contain facilitating explanations. The timing of the response stands out as a critical factor. The discussion underlines a need for writing instruction that invites students to revisions and involves teachers and students in active dialogues on text.     

Children's cognitive effort and fluency in writing: Effects of genre and of handwriting automatisation

This study investigated the cognitive effort of 5th and 9th graders while writing a text. We manipulated genre (narrative text vs. argumentative text) and tested how level of handwriting automatisation contributes to cognitive effort and fluency in writing. The participants were 23 students from Grade 5 and 21 from Grade 9, who wrote two texts differing in genre while performing a secondary reaction time task. The results showed that cognitive effort interacted with genre. Cognitive effort decreased between Grades 5 and 9 only for writing argumentative text. Handwriting did not contribute to fluency in writing, but contributed to cognitive effort only in 5th-graders' writing of narrative text. The findings are discussed in light of the factors contributing to cognitive effort and fluency in writing.     

Writing texts with Radical Change characteristics

Research has revealed how students draw upon other texts when writing their own texts. This article explores how the writing of Alyssa, a 10‐year‐old Grade 5 student, was influenced by her engagement with literature with Radical Change characteristics, as well as by her knowledge of and experience with other texts. Dresang's Radical Change taxonomy is used as a framework for analysing the storybook created by Alyssa. The article concludes with discussions of the intertextual nature of the literature used in the study, and the social nature of intertextuality in the research classroom.     

再论阅读与写作的相关性——兼议如何“以读促写”

以实证研究和前人的相关成果为基础,探讨英语二语学生阅读与写作能力之间的相关性,认为两者为弱相关。识别性词汇和产出性词汇的区别等三个方面因素导致这种弱相关性的形成。“以读促写”和“学以致用”等理念可以帮助阅读输入有效转化为写作输出。     

Writing and pseudo‐writing from Internet‐based sources: implications for learning and assessment

In recent years, plagiarism has been on the increase across the Western world. This article identifies Internet access as a contributory cause of this trend and addresses the implications of readily available Internet sources for the teaching and assessment of writing in schools. The basis for the article is a previous study showing a wide incidence of plagiarism in the Internet‐based writing of students in three classes at upper secondary school level in Norway. I relate the students' choices to writing as a cognitive process and as a cultural practice. My basic assumption is that the students' writing is work. It is this work we have in mind when we relate writing to learning and when we assess students' skills on the basis of their written texts. Access to the Internet changes the premises for this work because writing can be replaced by ‘pseudo‐writing’. ‘Pseudo‐writing’ is a work reducing writing practice, which neither excludes nor coincides with what we traditionally associate with plagiarism in schools. The main point in this article is that when students have access to the Internet during essay writing, the result is unavoidably a product of both writing and pseudo‐writing. Internet access thus leads to greater uncertainty about the role writing plays in student learning and makes it more difficult to take written assignments into account in assessing students' school results and effort.     

合作写作促进元认知策略习得的实证研究

为探讨合作学习对促进写作元认知策略的习得以及提高学生写作水平的效果,在大学英语写作课堂进行实证研究。结果表明:合作写作促进学习者之间写作元认知策略的相互分享和自我反思,也提高了反馈的有效性,从而增强了他们写作元认知策略建构的广度和深度,大大提高了写作元认知策略的习得和写作水平。     

Strategic revisions in the writing of Year 7 students in the UK

This article discusses revisions to personal narrative writing made by Year 7 students (aged 11–12) in a UK secondary school. The concept of strategic revision was used as a basis for analysing drafts and revised texts in order to investigate strategies and techniques deployed by students in the process of revision and how these related to expectations student writers had of their readers.

These analyses suggest that, given a reasonably supportive instructional environment, some Year 7 students can revise their own written texts strategically, and that in doing so they may recruit, and perhaps acquire, a range of writing skills and associated procedural knowledge. They also suggest that in the process of revising their texts, some student writers may have altered their expectations of their readers' understanding, ability to interpret and willingness to empathise.

Implications for researching writing processes and for the writing curriculum are suggested, including the use of students' revisions to tap into the complex sets of procedural knowledge which seem to underlie aspects of writing and writing development.     

A statewide writing assessment model: Student proficiency and future implications

This paper is an examination of statewide district writing achievement gain data from the Nebraska Statewide Writing Assessment system and implications for statewide assessment writing models. The writing assessment program is used to gain compliance with the United States No Child Left Behind Law (NCLB), a federal effort to influence school district assessment and accountability. While the research literature is mixed with some viewing statewide writing assessment as narrowing writing curriculum and “standardizing” writing, others point out that it facilitates sharing between teachers to improve writing and teachers are empowered by their participation in the process.Nebraska's Statewide Writing Assessment, based on the six-trait model, has strong support from teachers regarding their perception of the assessment in supporting teaching practices and student success. Examination of achievement gain data revealed gains in 4th, 8th, and 11th grades in the average number of students rated proficient from one administration of the assessment to the next.Implications for educational practice, recommendations for future research, and relevant related issues (NCLB concerns and measurement issues) are discussed.     

汉语作为第二语言的两种看图写作测试方式的实验研究

我们通过实验研究比较了目前汉语水平考试中采用的两种看图写作测试方式的有效性．研究显示类似连环画的多幅图比单幅图更能有效地反映汉语学习中级阶段应试者的写作水平,前者基本不需要立意构思,而且较少受到题目取样误差和评分人误差的影响,适合在大规模的汉语中级写作水平测试中使用。     

Differential effects of learning games on mathematics proficiency

This study examined the effects of a learning game, [The Math App] on the mathematics proficiency of middle school students. For the study, researchers recruited 306 students, Grades 6–8, from two schools in rural southwest Virginia. Over a nine-week period, [The Math App] was deployed as an intervention for investigation. Students were assigned to game intervention treatment, and paper-and-pencil control conditions. For the game intervention condition, students learned fractions concepts by playing [The Math App]. In the analysis, students’ mathematical proficiency levels prior to the intervention were taken into account. Results indicate that students in the game intervention group showed higher mathematics proficiency than those in the paper-and-pencil group. Particularly, the significantly higher performances of intervention groups were noted among 7th graders and inclusion groups. The empirically derived results of the reported study could contribute to the field of educational video game research, which has not reached a consensus on the effects of games on students’ mathematics performance in classroom settings.     

Penning the 3 AM Thoughts: What Students Say about Writing Personally in English Class

This article features student perspectives on the role of personal writing in English class. Key findings and quotations are shared from two in-depth interviews with students who wrote exceptional personal essays as part of a narrative nonfiction unit in a 10th grade English class. Participants reported that writing personally generated more investment than a traditional academic assignment, controlling the level of sharing was key to being able to write honestly and openly, and mentor texts and writers’ notebooks were key tools which empowered their successful writing.     

Differences in the reading of shallow and deep orthography: developmental evidence from Hebrew and Turkish readers

The present study investigates differences in the word‐reading process between individuals reading in a deep (unpointed Hebrew) and a shallow orthography (Turkish). The participants were 120 students evenly and randomly recruited from three levels of education (primary = 3rd–4th graders; middle = 6th–7th graders; high = 9th–10th graders). The students were tested with a computerised paradigm that assessed their efficiency in determining the identicalness of real word (RW) pairs and nonsense word (NW) pairs under perceptual and conceptual conditions. Based on a strong orthographic depth hypothesis, Turkish readers were hypothesised to manifest superior word‐processing skills in comparison to Hebrew readers, both for RWs and NWs. Evidence obtained from the analysis of the quantitative and qualitative performance of the participants failed to support this prediction. Findings are discussed with reference to a single‐route grain‐size‐based word‐reading model and a modified dual‐route word‐reading model.     

Negotiating meanings and scaffolding learning: writing support for non‐English speaking background postgraduate students

Language and learning advisers and non‐English speaking background (NESB) postgraduate students negotiate complex territory when working together to improve students’ texts. However, the individual writing consultation is sometimes conceptualised one‐dimensionally by faculty as a form of editing. The writing consultation with NESB postgraduate students has also received only sporadic attention in the higher education literature. This paper provides a contextual, discourse analytical account of one writing consultation between a faculty‐based language adviser and a Master of Public Health NESB student. The findings show that the consultation was a dynamic exchange druing which a range of meanings were negotiated. The findings also show that the adviser scaffolded the student’s academic writing and learning in a number of ways. More research is needed in different teaching contexts and at various stages of students’ writing in order to provide a greater understanding of the writing support consultation to inform guidelines for providing individual language support to NESB postgraduate students.     

任务链教学法在英语写作教学中的应用

运用定量和定性两种方法对非英语专业大一两个自然班的学生,进行了为期10周的写作教学实验,实验班采用任务链教学法,控制班采用传统的成品教学法。实验结果表明：与成品教学法相比,任务链教学法对提高学生英语写作的兴趣具有更积极的作用,能更有效地促进学生英语写作水平的提高。     

英语仿写的教学策略

为了提高学生的英语写作能力,在高一高二就要加强英语写作教学,训练学生利用不同体裁的课文中的相关词汇、句型、语法进行仿写的能力,并以小组合作探究的形式对学生习作进行修改和讲评。